I wanted to post some simple vegan baking substitutions in advance of our Vegan Baking Contest on March 9th to make it easier for people to enter!
Vegan baking is easy, and almost all recipes can easily be made vegan with simple substitutions. To be vegan means using no animal products, including milk, butter, and eggs.
Milk is the easiest to substitute with a non dairy milk like almond milk or any other plant based milk. In truth, milk can be substituted for just about any liquid in a one-to-one ratio, so depending on the recipe you could even use fruit juice. You could probably even use water, but the point of using a flavored liquid, whatever that might be, is to give extra flavor to the recipe. If you substitute water for milk, you will probably not be pleased with the result.
Coconut milk Is a better substitute for condensed milk or cream in recipes.
Eggs in baked goods are generally used as a binder to hold ingredients together and to add moisture, as well as helping to lighten baked goods. You can purchase ready-made egg replacers, but they can also be substituted with a "flax egg" (mixing 1 tbs of flaxseed meal + 3 tbs. water, then let sit for a few minutes before adding to a recipe). You can also try adding more oil or some applesauce to replace an egg in most baked goods.
Butter can be replaced with dairy free margarine, but I often just replace the amount of butter in a recipe with vegetable oil or canola oil, which I feel works well for most recipes. Vegan frosting can be tricky (at least for me), so I often use a simple powdered sugar glaze instead.
I hope that helps, and please be sure to register for our Vegan Baking Contest on Saturday, March 9th by emailing us at passhealthfoods@gmail.com or calling us at 708-448-9114.
